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HOW TO: GTalk On Your Orange HTC Desire

Owners of the HTC Desire on Orange will notice that the Talk (AKA GTalk and Google Talk) is missing from their phone. I’m guessing this is only to promote their own custom IM application, which has an extra cost attached to it. Don’t worry though, here’s a quick and easy way to get the application on your Desire. Just follow the simple steps below:

Download and install Astro File Manager from the Market (if you don’t have it already)

If you downloaded this on your phone skip to Step 4
If you downloaded this on your computer skip to Step 5

Open Astro file manager

Click on Downloads

Select Talk.apk

Connect your Desire to computer and mount as USB

Copy the Talk.apk file to your phone

Open Astro file manager

Browse to where you’ve put Talk.apk

Select Talk.apk

Select Open App Manager from the two options that appear on Astro

Click Install

Install the application as any normal app. If you get an Install blocked message, just go to Settings and make sure the Unknown sources box is checked

Open your menu and you should see Talk appear!

The Talk application will sign in automatically (unless you set it not to) and let you talk to any of your GMail contacts via Instant Messenger. It’s a lot better than other IM apps in the sense that it doesn’t need to keep asking the server if there’s new messages, instead it uses PUSH to get messages to your phone. This means no extra battery drain and fast notifications!